to breathe again, to start again
by nedlovesyou
Summary: In an attempt to vanquish her memories of that night with the Count, Felicity decides to cut her hair. How will Oliver react to this new Felicity? One-shot. Oliver/Felicity. Post 2x07.


**You guys. All the feels from 2x07. I had to do something with them... so when this idea came into my head I was quick to type it out. Hasn't been beta'd so all mistakes are mine. Title comes from Calls Me Home by Shannon LaBrie.**

**Enjoy!**

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Her initial return to the office that following day isn't as hard as she'd thought it would be. She'd been expecting the memories to be waiting for her by the elevator doors, ready to crash over her like waves.

But the flood never comes.

The crime scene clean-up crew must have worked overnight. There's no glass littering the floor, nor is there a single crack in the window where the Count had tumbled to his end. All of the chairs in the conference room are arranged just as they had been yesterday, pushed in at all the correct places, straight and symmetrical. The same mug that the Count had shot off the side table next to the couch isn't there anymore, of course, but someone has gone through the trouble of finding an exact match and placing it exactly where the original had been. The couch itself looks the same; someone had been quick to have it reupholstered.

In the back of her mind, she knows that Oliver probably had something to with all of this. She can't imagine how he'd managed to find the time to get it all done, what with Moira's release and the Queen family reunion. She wonders how he'd slept, or if he'd even slept at all. Remembering how shaken he'd seemed leaning out the window to look at the Count's fallen corpse, she doubts he could have.

Pushing the thoughts of Oliver to the back of her mind, she takes a seat at her desk and begins her normal routine. The hum of her desktop powering on soothes her, and the feel of the keyboard under her hands has a similar effect. Looking around the space, she's taken back to yesterday afternoon – to when it was just another day at the office.

Still, there's something that feels amiss in her. It takes her a while, but she finally places it.

It's the ponytail.

She notices it while Oliver is at a business lunch with some investors. She's walking toward his desk with some files he had asked for, and with every step her ponytail sways from side to side. It's a movement she's grown accustomed to over the years, and she used to quite like the way it swung like a pendulum behind her.

But now, every time it grazes the skin of her neck, she's taken back to the night before. She can feel the Count's grimy hands crawl across her skin, can almost hear him breathing behind her. She's reminded of the rhythmic way he had laced his fingers through her hair and slowly let it slip through them. Her mind starts ticking to the rhythm, and she quickens her pace in an attempt to escape from it.

She busies herself immediately after returning to her desk, trying to distract herself from the crushing weight she suddenly feels. Oliver returns from lunch not soon after that. He checks in with her, but their conversation doesn't stray from business. She's grateful for it, because she can feel the memories in her head waiting to breach the surface and she's not sure she'd be able to stop them from doing so had he mentioned anything about the previous night.

She tries her best to get through the rest of the day without breaking, but no matter how much she tries to compartmentalize and keep herself in check, she just can't ignore the hair tickling her skin with every slight movement of her head. She finds herself scratching at her neck every few minutes, a tic she tries to hide from Oliver. She's painfully aware of the fact that she's directly in his line of sight, and she curses the architect who designed the space in such a way.

Every minute passes slower than the last. She's reminded of those fifteen minutes that it had taken Oliver to reach her after the Count called him, the minutes she spent helpless in the hands of a madman that seemed to stretch on for an eternity. Suddenly she thinks she can feel his breath against her ear as he makes a remark about where her skirt meets the skin of her thigh, and the next thing she knows she's bolting to the restroom.

The moment the door is closed behind her, she's reaching for the elastic in her hair. She's careful not to let it fall, making quick work of twisting it all into a bun to sit at the top of her head. After tying the elastic around the base, she grabs a bobby pin that had been pinning back a shorter piece of hair and secures the bun in place. It's not the most professional hairstyle, she notes while looking in the mirror, but Isabel is the only woman on this floor who would have anything to say about it and fortunately she's been stuck downstairs in meetings all day.

Walking back feels like a breeze without the ponytail swaying behind her, but she isn't prepared for Oliver to be waiting for her by her desk. His eyes are quick to find the bun, and his brows furrow at the sight of it. When his gaze meets hers, she braces herself.

"I have a four o'clock meeting and then I'm done for the day. You're welcome to pack up and head home if you want," he says smoothly. She knows him well enough to recognize that there is something more he wants to say, but he's gone before she can question him. Part of her is glad for that.

Back at her apartment, she distracts herself with busy work. She tinkers around with the settings on her television, finally gets around to cleaning that coffee stain on her kitchen floor, and goes about reorganizing her book collection into chronological, rather than alphabetical, order.

Despite her best efforts, she ends up in the bathroom with a pair of scissors.

She lets her hair loose from the bun, shivering when it hits her shoulders and splays across her back. Without giving it a second thought, she makes a cut just above her left shoulder. She finds it strangely liberating to watch the hair fall through her fingers and into the barrel at her feet. With a few more cuts, she feels like she can breathe again.

At first she doesn't recognize her reflection. She looks older, and there's a coldness in her features that she had never noticed before. Cutting up into her hair, she's able to clean up the blunt edges. It's difficult to get the back to look right, but with a second mirror in her hand and the right angle, she somehow manages to make it look decent. By the time she's finished, she's actually starting to warm up to the new look. It's not what she's used to seeing, but part of her feels like that might be a good thing. With all of the changes this past year in her life has brought, she's needed a change anyways. It might be trauma that had prompted this change, but that doesn't mean she can't embrace it – and she feels ready to.

Walking into the office the next morning, she notices people responding to the change. She hadn't had much time to play around with different ways of styling it so she had decided to wear it straight, allowing it to fall just above her shoulders. The security guard in the lobby is one of the first to really react to it, lifting his eyebrows at the sight of her. She sends a smile his way and heads to the elevator. As the doors are about to close, a manicured hand reaches out to stop them and Isabel steps inside. She has to do a double take before recognizing that the woman at her side is Felicity, and a smirk of sorts settles on her lips. Felicity waits for the biting remark, but it never comes. It seems that Isabel just might actually approve of her new look.

With even more confidence, Felicity strolls into the office and settles into her chair. As she's placing her bag at her feet, she notices that Oliver is already at his desk with Digg at his side. They don't seem to notice her, so she goes about her normal routine.

"Looking good, Felicity," Digg comments, suddenly in front of her desk. She lifts her gaze and sees that Oliver, too, has joined them.

"I hope that's not sarcasm," she responds. She can tell that Digg had been serious, but there's a part of her that needs to hear him say it.

"No. It might not be the easiest change to adjust to this early in the morning, but I think it suits you," he smiles genuinely.

Felicity breathes a sigh of relief. She should have known that he would support her in this. He's never been anything but supportive of her – even before all of those months after the undertaking they had spent leaning on each other.

After returning Digg's smile with one of her own, Felicity shifts her gaze to Oliver. She's immediately struck by the dark intensity in his eyes, and she can see him piecing it all together in that moment – the Count's hands slinking through her hair, the way she'd been scratching at her neck, the bun. She waits for him to call her on it.

Instead, he excuses himself with a tone of forced professionalism, claiming that he has a nine o'clock meeting. Felicity had looked over his schedule the night before so she knows that his first meeting isn't until noon, but she decides not to say anything. Digg shoots her a look, also recognizing that something was off about his response, before following in step behind him.

She sees Oliver a few times throughout the rest of the day, but he always seems to be in a rush – digging through drawers in search of obscure files, making one call after another, sitting at his desk for no more than ten minutes. He disappears at around three and doesn't come back, but she gets a text from him at five o'clock asking her to meet him and Digg at Verdant.

He puts her to work almost immediately, asking her to do some snooping on a business owner in the Glades. She can hear the grunts and the sounds of skin hitting skin behind her as he and Digg spar. Usually they take a break to check in on her every half hour or so to see what she's found, but Oliver doesn't leave the mat tonight. Digg joins her every now and again, but she can't seem to find anything on their target, so there isn't much reason for him to stick around.

Digg calls it a night at around nine o'clock, and if Oliver had noticed his departure then he's not letting on to the fact. Felicity can hear him moving up and down the salmon ladder behind her. She waits for him to break this silence between them, even chances a few looks in his direction, but he seems content with ignoring her.

With a sigh, she starts to power down the system. She's reaching for the coat slung on the back of her chair when suddenly he's in front of her, pulling a t-shirt over his chest.

"I ran Lawrence against every server I could think of, and either he's really good at covering his tracks or there's nothing for me to find," she states, pulling her jacket around her. Oliver doesn't seem surprised to hear that her search came up empty, and only nods in response.

Out of routine, Felicity reaches to pull her ponytail out from underneath her jacket and is momentarily surprised to feel nothing but air underneath her fingers. She would laugh if not for how tense the situation suddenly feels, as the meaning behind her movements is not lost on Oliver. A shadow seems to have fallen over him, and the next thing she knows he's reaching out to her. He gently takes a strand of her hair in his hand and runs his fingers along its length, as if testing its tangibility – as if it hadn't seemed real to him until now. Slowly, he lets it slip through his fingers and then draws his hand back to his side. Felicity's breath hitches at how intimate it all feels.

"Why did you cut it?" he asks, his voice coming out like gravel.

Felicity struggles with how to respond. She considers lying – saying that she had just needed a change and that her stylist was offering a deal on bob cuts that day – but she knows he would see right through it. Suddenly feeling the weight of it all again, she lets herself fall back into her chair.

"I just..." she starts, but the memories chill the blood in her veins and she has to close her eyes to collect herself before continuing. "I just kept feeling his hands in my hair, and on my skin. And I tried to let it go, but every time I moved it's like he was behind me again. He was everywhere. It was all too much. I wasn't even really thinking when I cut it, honestly – I just wanted to make him go away."

She can't look at Oliver, can't bring herself to lift her gaze and face the remorse from that night that she's sure has returned to his eyes. But suddenly he's kneeling in front of her, taking her hands in his like he had the other night, and she's forced to meet his gaze. She can't help but wonder briefly if this is becoming a new habit for them.

"I am so sorry," he whispers, the guilt heavy in his tone. He looks down at the their hands, ghosting his thumb across her fingers. The full extent of the meaning behind his apology hits her then with an overwhelming force: he wishes that he had never brought her into this life, this life that constantly puts her at risk – this life where he can't guarantee that he will always get there in time to save her.

Felicity squeezes his hand, and he looks back to her.

"It was my choice, Oliver. I was the one who decided to follow that lead on my own, and it was my choice to join you that night I found you bleeding in my car. I don't regret it for a second – not any of it." Her voice is firm, and she's proud of herself for getting through it without breaking. She needs him to know that she means every word.

He seems to. But there's still a part of him that's filled with worry, wondering if all of this is changing her too much – if he'll still be able to recognize her in two years, or five, or if she'll slowly harden up like he has. He can't stand the thought of looking at her one day and just seeing pieces of who she is today, knowing that he's the one who broke her.

Sensing his struggle, Felicity smiles. "You should've seen my hair in high school. It was still brown then, and it was so frizzy it looked like I'd electrocuted myself with a toaster before I left for school every day. A friend even convinced me to get pink highlights once, which only called more attention to the problems that were already there. I'd show you a picture, but I'm pretty sure I burned most of them in college. I tucked the rest away at the bottom of a box in the back of my closet where they should never see the light of day. Although, I suppose if someone ever tried to rob me, they could serve as an adequate form of self-defense..."

And it's all just so utterly and unmistakably _Felicity_ that Oliver can't fight the smile tugging at his lips.


End file.
